Lack of Memory
by Xelaric the Nobody
Summary: Is it bad to forget your best friend after being in a car accident? Oneshot. Jean/Marco friendship with ghost!Marco.


**A/N: So, I wrote this for my creative writing class. My teacher said we could write fanfiction, so I did just that. _IamsosorryIamJeanMarcotrash._**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan. It rightfully belongs to Hajime Isayama.**

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><p>They tell me I was in an accident, but I have little to no memory of it.<p>

Weird, right? Well, it's not so weird when you think about it.

The first thing I remember after the supposed accident were the faces of my parents hovering over mine. My mother was gushing and crying, blubbering about something having to do with my eyesight. At first, I had no idea what she was talking about. I could see perfectly fine. But when I was allowed to walk around, I kept bumping into walls and tables. It wasn't until after a few days that I finally looked into a mirror.

My right eye was almost completely clouded over. A jagged pink scar slashed down the center of the right side of my face, ending just above my lip. Great. That was going to be one story to tell on picture day.

The second thing I remembered after a week of being conscious was this super annoying nagging feeling in the back of my mind. It felt like I was supposed to remember something else about the accident, something big. I just couldn't put my finger on it.

And now here I am, present day Jean Kirchstein, still lacking depth perception and not being able to remember a damn thing about the accident.

It was a quiet autumn afternoon, which meant I had plenty of school work to be doing. Being too lazy to read with my horrible eyesight, I listened to the audiobook version of _Macbeth._ I sat at the small desk shoved into the corner of my room. I had to duck a little bit because my room was basically part of the attic, so the roof slanted downwards. My English notes were laid out in front of me, my messy handwriting scrawling across the lined papers.

I was barely even listening to the drawling voices of all the different characters. Sighing over dramatically, I hit pause on the tape player. The assignment wasn't due until next Monday which gave me tomorrow and the whole weekend to do it. Knowing myself, I probably wasn't going to do it until Sunday at eleven o'clock at night. But who even does all their homework in one sitting? Not Jean Kirchstein, no sir.

Rising to my feet, I slammed my notebook shut and started to pick my way across the floor of my bedroom. There was only one other room in the attic, and that was what my family calls our junk room. There were boxes of all sizes stacked precariously on top of one another filled with old photo albums, newspaper clippings, old clothes, and trinkets. Two ceiling-to-floor bookshelves rose on either side of the room. A large window let in the gray light of the overcast sky outside, giving the room an eerie glow. Unfazed by this, I carefully walked across the room, moving out of the way of the boxes hampering my path.

I plopped down ungracefully in front of the window. Leaning my head against the glass, I stared outside. Every tree had started to shed its leaves for the impending winter. The wind blew, causing the trees to submit to its force. The red and orange leaves parted for a bit, and I could've sworn that I saw a dark figure through the branches.

I sat bolt upright. My eyes widened. The leaves swayed in the wind, closing the gap between the branches and opening again when it blew. The figure was gone.

My heart was crawling up my throat, threatening to choke me. My pulse was going a million miles an hour, and my mind was trying to comprehend what I just saw.

_I'm seeing things,_ I told myself. _Lacking depth perception can do that to you sometimes._

It took me a minute or two to calm down, but eventually I was breathing steadily again. I had to keep convincing myself that what I had seen was just a trick of the eyes—or eye, in my case—but a chill ran up my spine when I told myself that. It was definitely _not_ a trick of vision.

Back in the sanctuary that I called my room, I haphazardly shoved my books back in my bag. I looked out my small window almost absentmindedly as I tossed my bag at the foot of my bed. As soon as my backpack hit the floor near my bed, something behind me clicked. The tape player had started and the dialogue of _Macbeth_ had started up. I almost wanted to laugh out loud about how ridiculous this was becoming. Instead, I turned around, facing my desk on which the tape player sat. No one else besides me was in the room. I felt like a child as I went over to my door way and looked down both ends of the hallway. No one was up here except for me.

I hit pause on the tape player. I could hear my pulse in my ears. Something freaky was going on, and I didn't know what.

"It's from the lack of sleep I've been getting," I said to myself out loud. "Yeah, that's got to be it. I'm imagining things."

"C'mon, you know it's not your imagination."

The voice came like a whisper in my ear, and I jumped, nearly hitting my head on the low ceiling. I laughed shakily, nervously.

"Dad, if that's you, this isn't funny at all," I called out warily. My dad did things to freak me out all the time. Today had to have been one of those days where he scared me for his amusement. Either that or I had completely lost my marbles and was hearing voices in my head.

"I'm serious, dad." No answer came. Biting my bottom lip, I turned to stare into a square mirror that hung on the wall opposite me. I looked pale, like something had jumped out and scared me half to death.

Something moved in the mirror, and the rest of the color drained from my face.

Standing behind me was the insubstantial figure of a boy about my age.

I whipped around to face him, but he had gone. I felt a soft tap on my shoulder. On instinct, I turned around again. And there he was, right in my face.

I screamed, stumbling backwards, tripping over things as I attempted to get away. I fell over and landed on the floor. My breathing was heavy now as I tried to catch it. The see thru figure just stood there with a questioning eyebrow raised. He took a step towards me, but I scooted backwards to get away from him.

I got a good look at him. His outline was just a bit hazy, and I could see the wall behind him right through his head. I looked into his eyes but he didn't even have irises or pupils or _anything_. They were just a pair of vast black spaces. His hair was dark—nearly as dark as his eyes—and short. All over his face were what looked like freckles. He was clad in a pale green sweater and dark jeans. Around his neck he wore a white scarf. I noticed that at one end of it, a black "M" had been sewn into it.

"Oh God," I muttered to myself. "I am dead. I'm dead, I'm dead, I've died, and _I'm dead_."

He smiled amusedly. "Trust me, you're not dead."

"W-what the fuck _are_ you?" I asked, gesturing shakily at his entire being.

He chuckled. I stared in shock at him. This guy—this_ thing_—was _chuckling_ at me. He nearly scared the living daylights out of me, and he's _laughing_ at me. Trying to regain my composure, the boy in front of me stopped laughing and sat (or floated, rather) in midair, a look of concern on his face.

"Don't you remember me?" he asked politely.

I slowly rose to my feet, not breaking eye contact with him. "It's rude to answer someone's question with another question," I retorted. "I'll ask again. What are you?"

"And _you_ didn't answer _me._ But I'm a ghost—a spirit of someone who wasn't fully at rest when they died; a phantom, an apparition. Whatever floats your boat."

I scoffed. "So you're actually dead then? Like, you died, and came back for the sole purpose of haunting people? More specifically, haunting me?"

He rolled his eyes. "Oh, c'mon, J—" The ghost stopped himself as if he had just been about to reveal a secret that would have preferred to be kept. He looked away from me, mumbling into his scarf. "Yeah, I'm actually dead."

I furrowed my brow at him at first. Had he known my name? And if so, why did he stop himself? I shrugged it off. Looking at him, I folded my arms and narrowed my eyes. "You got a name?"

"Marco," was his reply. At the sound of his name, something went off in my head. The name sounded familiar. I couldn't pinpoint exactly where I knew it from but it was bothering me greatly. I broke eye contact with the ghost now dubbed Marco, furrowing my brow. Where did I know him from?

It was then that I laughed at myself. The freckled phantom looked at me in half surprise and half concern. _I couldn't possibly know this guy,_ I told myself. _He could have been dead for a few decades for all I know. Stop worrying about it._

(…)

Autumn had ended much faster than I was anticipating, and winter came like a sudden blowing wind. The cold was starting to get to me, but it seemed to have no effect on the ghost I had come to befriend.

It was almost alarming how easily I got over the fact that he was dead. I guess I just wasn't picky about who I talked to because let's just say I wasn't the most liked guy at Trost High.

Our conversations were that of (mostly) normal ones. A few times I had asked Marco about what it was like being a ghost. He had answered my questions as best as he could.

"How the hell does it feel when you phase through walls and other stuff?" I had asked him one time as I slowly went about with doing my homework.

Marco had sat in midair like he usually did, looking up at the ceiling in thought. He spun himself in slow circles as if he were on a swivel chair. "Well, it's kind of like walking through an open doorway, except you can't see what's on the other side until you get there."

I had hounded him with questions not unlike the first one for a while until I had finally finished all of my school work in one sitting. After shoving all my books back into my bag and tossing it to the side of my bed, I swiveled around to face Marco. My brow furrowed as I looked at him. His expression was that of confusion and amusement.

"What?" he huffed. "Why are you looking at me like that, Jean?"

I folded my arms over my chest. "You said to me when we first met that you were a ghost because you weren't at peace when you died, right?"

"Right," Marco answered nervously, starting to catch my drift.

"Well, why aren't you at peace?"

The freckled phantom bit his lower lip, hesitating on what his next words were going to be. The question was probably a touchy subject for him. Knowing him, his answer would probably be something along the lines of not being able to say something to someone. Something small like that.

I did not look away from him even when he had looked away from me. The question had been bugging me as of late; I needed to know the answer, or I felt like I would explode. Marco turned away from me.

"C'mon, Marco, you can tell me."

"No, I _can't_."

His words and the tone in which he said them hit me like a ton of bricks. Without showing how upset his words made me, I got up to walk over to him.

"It's alright, dude. Just tell me—"

Marco turned his head so that he could just see me. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Oh c'mon—"

"Bye, Jean."

And like that, he disappeared into thin air.

I sighed in frustration. Marco sometimes did that when he didn't want to talk or was feeling particularly moody. It would take him a few days to get over it, and then he would be back to his usual cheery self.

The first day after he disappeared felt normal to me. It was a little too quiet for my liking though. Another few days passed, and Marco still hadn't come back to talk.

It was now the fifth day since he disappeared. Despite knowing that he was a ghost and all, it was natural to feel at least a little bit worried for the guy. Every few moments or so, I kept glancing over my shoulder from my desk, just in case the freckled phantom decided to sneak up on me. After maybe a half an hour of doing this, I sighed. Did he really get that upset about what I had asked him?

After a half-hearted attempt at finishing my homework, I ventured into the other room across the hall. I wasn't even halfway across the room when a box had toppled over, spilling its contents all over the floor. The first thought that came to mind was _that's got to be Marco. _

Carefully, I weaved between the pillars of boxes that surrounded the one that fell. Normally I would've just left it, but I couldn't resist sifting through the papers that had fallen.

At first, they all looked like normal newspapers to me, but the second or third one from the top of the small pile had caught my eye. The headline read, "Two High School Students in Fatal Car Accident".

With shaking hands, I held the newspaper up so that I could see and read it better. My good eye frantically skimmed over the news type. My heart skipped a beat or two, and I froze.

I had to read and reread the part I stopped at. "Both students at Trost High School, Jean Kirchstein and Marco Bodt were hit by another group of teenagers from the front. Bodt, the driver, died upon arriving to the emergency room. Kirchstein's status at this point is unknown."

Hands shaking, I dropped the newspaper. That couldn't be real. I was dreaming. I couldn't possibly have known Marco beforehand. Photos that had spilled from the box seemed to tell me otherwise.

Littered around my feet were photos of me with, on average, three other people. Two of them were my good friends Sasha and Connie. Always by my side in the pictures was_ Marco Bodt himself_.

Something clicked in the back of my head. This was the thing that was bothering me ever since I woke up after the accident. This is why Marco had asked me if I had remembered him. A sick feeling grasped my stomach. _I couldn't remember my best friend_.

I tightly grasped the picture I was holding of the two of us and rose to my feet a little too quickly. My one good eye searched the room for Marco's presence.

"Marco, c'mon buddy, talk to me!" I pleaded. "You can't just disappear for a few days, show me this, and then not talk to me!"

"I'm sorry, Jean." His voice came from behind me. I faced him, holding up the picture of us. "I wanted to tell you, but I didn't know how much you remembered. When you said you hadn't remembered me, I thought it best not to say anything."

"Is this why you're not at rest?" I basically disregarded what he had said. "Because I didn't remember you? What's going to happen now that I do?"

Marco sighed. "Probably going to disappear for good."

I gaped at him. He held his hands up helplessly. "I don't make the rules."

"W-will I ever see you again?" I was on the verge of breaking down. How come no one ever told me that my best friend died right next to me? Connie or Sasha never mentioned anything, let alone my parents. Why had I been kept in the dark?

The ghost shrugged a shoulder. "You might. I don't know. I mean, now that you know, I'm not sure I'm completely at ease anymore. You look scared and upset."

"Well, wouldn't you be too if you just found out after nearly a _year _that your best friend is dead?" I snapped at him.

"Of course I would," he mumbled into his scarf.

We stood in silence for a few moments. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Marco's figure fading.

"Oh dude, don't pull this with me right now. It's not a good time," I complained as his outline started to lose its definition. Ironically, Marco looked scared.

"I'm not doing this, Jean."

I barely had time to realize what was happening before he fully disappeared.

The silence in the room was deafening. My best friend was gone.

For good.


End file.
